Indore civic body sends notices to buildings with 30-year plus age

INDORE: Owners of buildings, more than 30-year-old, will have to compulsorily obtain a structural stability certificate from a registered structural engineer or government or private approved engineering or polytechnic college. They have to submit it at Indore Municipal Corporation within thirty days.

The norm will be applicable to all individual building owners, organizations, groups and property holders, a notice issued by IMC said.

The move came four days after a portion of St Raphael’s higher secondary school building collapsed. The public notice issued by IMC has also directed building owners to carry out structural updates and renovations in their buildings as per the report by the engineer, if their buildings are found to be weak.

“It’s an advisory issued by us for all government and non-government buildings and structures after St Raphael’s incident,” Mahesh Sharma, superintendent engineer at IMC said.

Indore has over five lakh buildings- including residential, commercial, government offices, houses, flats etc. Of these thousands are more than thirty-year-old and fall under the category.

The notice directing compulsory structural stability certificate has also warned that if any building owner fails to submit it within the fixed duration- he or she will be personally responsible for any untoward incident or loss of life and property.

The notice has also annexed a list of organizations who can be approached for obtaining the certificate - Institute of Engineering and Technology (Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya), SGSITS, Vaishnav Polytechnic College, approved and affiliated civil engineering college where there is a technical team available to carry out the process and IMD registered structural engineers.

On August 27, a portion of St Raphael’s school building collapsed, an hour before the school was to begin. No casualties were reported in the incident, but the students were granted leave till September 2. Earlier in March 2018, the MS Hotel at Sarwate bus stand had also collapsed claiming ten lives and leaving two injured.

Duration should be increased to 50-year-old: CREDAI prez

Confederation of real estate developers of India (CREDAI), Indore chapter president Vijay Gandhi said, “It’s a good move to ensure fitness of the buildings and avoid accidents. But the corporation should have considered at least 50-year-old building as the normal healthy life of a building is about 50 years.” Also Gandhi suggested that the Corporation should provide a single window mechanism for getting the structure stability certificate for smooth functioning.